Less familiar than home

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

This city is home.

Or, at least it's familiar. Does being familiar with a location make it home? I'm not sure anymore.

I've spent so much time away it's been hard to get properly reacquainted with Winnipeg. The snow helps and acts as a blanket of normalcy but still there's something missing here. It's almost as if I need to start this whole thing over again. The setting is the same but the narrative has been altered.

They say when you travel, when you go away and come home, you "find yourself" or at least come back with a fresh view of things. For a lot of reasons I think that is legitimate and for a lot of reasons I think it's just the traveler wanting it to happen because that's what they've been told should happen. So they force it and pretend to be changed, to be experienced, wiser, a world traveler. Most of the time it's just pretension (read: bullshit).

They also say that when you travel you take the best of you - what's in your head and in your heart - with you and leave the worst - your physical belongings - behind. But it's also just as possible that you'll lose your head and your heart somewhere out there.

I think I've just come and gone so many times now that I can't make heads or tails of what I'm supposed to be. All those miles and handshakes and pictures and passport stamps and I still can't explain to anybody what the fuck it is I do. Or want to do.

From the other night: "So you're going to university but you don't know what you want to be?"

It was a borderline accusation.

The question always catches me off guard. I really should prepare a standard two sentence answer and keep it in my wallet.

I've had a hard time concentrating. I've had a hard time doing anything, really. The summer has been slipping into winter faster than anyone would reasonably wish for and I've done little more than watch it happen with a drink in my hand.

The other day while neglecting my studies I spent some time reading old posts on a now defunct blog of mine. Some of it is alright, some is dribble, a lot of it I barely remember writing. I used to write a lot, though, as if I used to be able to make sense of the things around me.

And that's what writing is, really. Making sense of the audible, the tangible, and the perceived surroundings. Maybe it's time to start writing again.